On 19 October, in a protest called to expose how imperialism is driving climate change, members and supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Group marched down Oxford Street to picket businesses that harm the environment and exacerbate the deplorable conditions working class people around the globe are forced to live under. Dozens of protesters assembled at Oxford Circus tube station to speak out against imperialism and for climate justice. Shoppers were handed informational leaflets about the social and ecological gains Cuba has made thanks to its socialist planned economy.
Through one of the busiest shopping streets of Europe, despite the torrential rain, we loudly occupied the street and stopped at regular intervals to publicly condemn the environmental crimes of businesses ubiquitous in the high streets of imperialist Britain:
- The first target was EE, which sells electronics containing cobalt and lithium extracted by super-exploited workers in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where children as young as eight work to mine minerals.
- We stopped at Zara and later on Primark, where we called out how fast fashion – the mass production of cheap clothes – amounts to over 80 billion garments being sold to customers annually and the drying up of the Aral Sea for the sake of churning out thousands of items per minute in factories in India, Bangladesh and China.
- Outside the Brazilian Consulate we spoke out against Bolsonaro’s government which has accelerated deforestation of the Amazon region with losses of more than 3,700 square kilometres this year alone. We drew comparisons to socialist Cuba where reforestation efforts have increased its area of forested land to 31% of the island from the 13% it was prior to the 1959 Revolution.
- Next stop was Lloyds Bank, an institution dedicated to the accumulation of profits along with the rest of the City of London. Lloyds greenwashes itself by pledging commitments to social responsibilities when in reality banks have invested a combined $1.9 trillion in the fossil fuel industry in the three years after the 2015 Paris Climate agreement, with plans to invest a further $4.5 trillion over the next ten years.
- Outside M&S we spoke on the relationship between rich and poor nations, and the rich and poor within each nation, and how climate change is driving the class war further as rich nations plunder the soil and waters of countries that year-round supply foods such as avocados, asparagus, beans and almonds. Between 2000 and 2014 food prices doubled, inflicting increasing misery on poorer people in both rich and poor countries, forcing working class people into eating processed cheap food. Over a third of food produced globally goes to waste, costing $1 trillion and weighing 1.3 billion tonnes. Meanwhile all the world’s nearly one billion hungry people could be fed on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the rich imperialist nations of the US, Britain and Europe. This is in addition to the role played by M&S in propping up the Zionist Israeli state in its apartheid occupation of Palestinian land.
Chants rang out declaring ‘Climate change is a war of the rich against the poor’ and ‘When the air we breathe is under attack, when the water we drink is under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!’ Calls in solidarity with socialist and progressive nations where chanted: ‘Viva Cuba/Venezuela/Bolivia/Fidel/Che/Evo Morales!’ Radical statements such as ‘Capitalism is extinction, socialism is survival!’, absent from the wider environmental movement, were also heard loud and clear by passers-by, some of whom joined the rolling picket.
The demonstration concluded at an Esso petrol station in Mayfair. ExxonMobil (which trades as Esso in Europe) is the second biggest greenhouse gas polluting company in history, profiting from wars waged to plunder the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America. It is also suing Cuba for $280m since US President Donald Trump activated Title III of the Helms-Burton Act this year (read more here).
The RCG and supporters have been picketing Esso stations in solidarity with Cuba in the face of mounting imperialist aggression and its agents like ExxonMobil. We will continue to hold these pickets and in the process agitate for climate action rooted in anti-imperialist politics here in Britain.
Blockade Esso not Cuba!
